


Modes of Communication

by rasputinian



Series: the saddest dads in all of olathe [2]
Category: LISA (Video Games)
Genre: Anal Sex, Canon Disabled Character, Deepthroating, Dirty Talk, Discussion of Consent Issues, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enthusiastic Consent, First Time, Frottage, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Oral Sex, Semi-Public Sex, a lot of kissing and mutual respect, a touch of undernegotiated kink, also weed, but also multiple first times, drunk sex but only for a second, mentions of drug addiction, nasty kinky boy terry hintz, suicide talk, that said it's p vanilla bc im saving all the kink stuff for lisa the domestic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-07 02:39:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10350585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rasputinian/pseuds/rasputinian
Summary: Brad tries to find a way to deal with intimacy issues. Terry helps.





	

**Author's Note:**

> the 50th fic in the lisa tag and it's just. 15k words of dadfucking. this is my legacy. this is my design.
> 
> if youre wondering why this fic is so late: i have depression
> 
> EDIT: frankly i'm not super proud of this one, so i put it on locked. i'll keep it up for posterity though!! thanx for your continued support of the rasputinian brand, y'all

Technically, it’s Terry’s watch. Queen Roger had come up with the idea of sleeping in shifts ever since Brad and the others had to give up half their mags to save him from some small-time gang. “Humiliating,” he had called it. “Absolutely humiliating.” But, for the past few nights, Terry and Brad have been spending their shifts together. Brad isn’t a good sleeper. Never has been. He’s spent years lying in silence, or, worse, noise he cannot stop. At least, now, there was someone to sit up and listen with him.

This, whatever it is that exists between him and Terry now, is good. Brad can’t remember if he’s had something like this before. He isn’t sure what categories to look under for previous examples, if he should think back to girlfriends or best friends or something else, but he knows that he likes this: conversations, quiet as not to wake up Fly or Queen, the look Terry gives him when things go silent, something comfortable and clean, the feeling of Terry’s hand against his face as he leans in and places a kiss above the corner of Brad’s mouth and the rush that follows.

Brad sucks open-mouthed kisses on Terry’s neck, scrapes his teeth lightly against his pulse, admires the warmth that courses through him when Terry squirms against his touch and lets out a throaty whisper, a single vowel.

“Ah-“ The sound makes Brad shiver. He presses a little more of his weight into Terry slowly as not to crush him, but the nervousness fades as Terry’s hands work into the skin beneath Brad’s poncho. In the daytime, Brad notices Terry’s hands, calloused, nails chewed uneven, in a passive way, but, here, Brad is hyperaware, leaning into every touch, sucking in a breath through his teeth when Terry’s nails bite into him. Brad nips the flesh just below Terry’s jaw, not enough to draw blood but enough to make the other man arch against him. “O-oh, fuck, dude.” Brad squeezes Terry against him. Terry’s hand moves from his back to his chest and down his stomach, and Brad basks in the touch until Terry’s hand moves lower and everything jolts to a stop. His body tenses. His breath catches in his throat.

“This good?” Terry asks, but there’s pause in his voice. Brad doesn’t say anything, can’t say anything, can’t even look him in the face. “Brad?” Terry’s hand slowly retreats to safer ground and settles at his ribs.

“Sorry,” Brad manages.

“No, dude, are you okay?” Brad nods, trying his best to look the part, fully aware that he’s failing. “I’m sorry, dude. I didn’t mean to, like—I just thought everything was going good, and—“

“No, it’s good,” Brad says, his voice as firm as he can manage. “I’m fine.” Terry doesn’t push it any further, but he stares at Brad as if he were trying to read a book in the muted dark of the cave. Even as Brad tries his best to look past Terry, into the reflection of the fire on the slick cave walls, he can’t help but see that face, lips slightly parted, an utter despair in his eyes. Brad feels sick, gut-ache, and the need to be not sober throbs in his skull. He knows he needs to say something. Terry deserves an explanation, but he can’t think beyond the bile and the heat. “I just,” he begins, but he doesn’t get much further. He’s never been able to get much further than this. “Not yet.”

“Okay.” There’s a little silence between them. Brad can’t meet Terry’s gaze for more than a moment. He’s already said too much, already let the feelings back in. “Do you wanna keep going, like, kissing-wise?” Brad draws in his lips and shakes his head. “Okay.” Another pause, too long. Brad tries to think about nothing. Terry lingers hard on the beginning of a sentence before speaking again. “Can I hold you?” Brad nods, and he can tell Terry is trying hard to smile as he settles back in his seat against the wall before offering out an arm. Brad eases himself into the touch, tucks his knees into his chest, places the side of his head against Terry’s lap. Terry’s cock, hard, presses into the side of his face, and Brad hates how much worse that makes the nauseous feeling.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry. That’s all he ever is.

“No, it’s my fault. I should’ve asked.” Terry sounds just about as bad as he does, and Brad doesn’t get why because Terry was just being _normal_. That was what normal people did. It wasn’t Terry’s fault that Brad was ruined.

“I just,” he says, a second attempt. He gets a little further than the first. “I just _can’t_.” His voice breaks on the final word, and he knows Terry heard it because he starts rubbing nervous paths on Brad’s neck with his fingers. It’s probably supposed to be a comforting gesture, but all it does is coax out tears. It takes a moment for Terry to respond, and, when he does, there is something horrible and afraid in his voice.

“Are you having, like, second thoughts about all this? Like, us?”

“No.”

“Is it because I’m a guy?”

“No.” Maybe. Fuck, he doesn’t know because all he can think about is being sixteen years old and puking all over the bathroom floor and Lisa in the other room and blood and Jesus Christ he should have killed himself a long time ago. Terry is still talking.

“Because, if you want to go back to being friends, we can do that. I can still like you even if it’s not, you know, like that. I don’t care. You’re my best friend, Brad.”

“I still want this,” he chokes out.

“Okay,” Terry says, and a bit of calm has returned to his voice, but it’s not quite right. Brad doesn’t know how to fix it all the way. He never does. They just lie there in silence, Terry absently petting the hair above Brad’s ear, Brad trying to stay still and quiet as he cries himself out. “Do you think our shift is up yet? I need to sleep I think.”

“Want me to go wake up Queen?” Brad asks, wiping his face on his arm as he eases himself up. Terry looks at him for a moment. Brad isn’t sure how much he can see in the dark of the cave, the only light at his back, but, apparently, he sees enough. He shakes his head.

“I’ll do it. You get some rest. I’ll- I’ll see you in the morning, okay?” Brad nods, whispers “okay.” He doesn’t have the energy to disagree.

Brad moves closer to the fire and curls himself into a little ball. He imagines the heat of the fire drying the sadness from his body like a foreign sun. It doesn’t quite work, but he does feel warmer, and he tries to tell himself that’s close enough.

Behind him, he hears Terry’s voice, gentle urging, and a shuffling noise as Queen Roger pushes himself up off the cave floor.

“You two having fun?” Queen chuckles.

“Who, me and Brad?” Terry asks with a little laugh. He sounds almost himself, and Brad would see himself, something else, in Terry if he weren’t so tired. “Uh, yeah. We had a good talk.”

“Mmhmm. What’s on your neck?"

“Oh, shit, how bad is it?” Terry chuckles, his voice cracking, and Queen shushes him, says something low. Brad promises himself he won’t fall asleep until Terry lies down. It’d be wrong of him somehow, but Terry and Queen’s voices fade into the clinking of glass, fire-crackle, night insects, he drifts off, horribly, horribly alone.

 

 

Brad used to go on walks when he’d tried to get sober before. It helped with the cravings. Not a lot, but enough. It was the rhythm of it, something he didn’t have to think about. He actively tries not to think about it because, if he does, he’ll think about how he could only remember Marty sitting down. He wondered, still does, if there was something wrong with his knees, if they hurt. Brad hopes they did. Brad hopes they didn’t. He hopes that his knees won’t start to hurt. If he is grateful for anything right now, it’s that he’s doing a lot of walking.

When they stop for water the next day in the shade of a high cliff, Brad feels like he did on those sober walks: hot, sunny, and empty headed. He sits, legs spread out before him, against the wall of the cliff, as he sips dirty water from a scavenged bottle. The glass is warm from the sun, the water even hotter and vaguely metallic on his tongue. He closes his eyes as if the heat in his skull will escape past his eyelids and leave places for the anxiousness to fill, the anxiousness that always comes when he thinks about where Buddy is or what she’s doing or if she’s safe and how he doesn’t know if they’re going in the right direction. Brad squeezes his eyes tighter and only opens them again when he hears footsteps. Terry ambles over and sits down beside him. His skin is glossy wet, and his cheeks are baked red, but he smiles as his eyes meet Brad’s.

“We’re setting up camp here, right?” Terry asks, not completely seriously but serious enough to merit a response.

“It’s still bright out.”

“We’ve been walking for, like, six hours. I’m injured! You gotta carry me.”

“I’m not gonna carry you with one arm, Terr.”

“I’m not saying you gotta give me the full wedding day treatment! You can throw me over your shoulder,” Terry explains, placing his hand on Brad’s shoulder and giving it a little shake. Brad’s first instinct is to jump, to recoil, but, as the touch lingers, he reminds himself that this is Terry, and this is good, and this is safe, and this doesn’t hurt, and this is fine. He takes a breath.

“Like a fireman or like a scarf?” he asks, his voice softening.

“Either one. As long as I’m getting carried.” Brad exhales in a puff that he hopes resembles a laugh, and he hands his bottle to Terry.

“You want some water?”

“Oh my God, yes, please. I drank mine too fast and inhaled, like, ninety percent of it.” Terry takes the bottle quickly, but he makes a visible effort to slow his pace as he tilts the bottle upward and takes a big gulp. He makes a loud “ahh” sound as he pulls away before handing the bottle back to Brad. Brad accepts it and takes another sip, but he watches Terry wipe his face on the hem of his shirt out of his peripheral. He pushes back his bangs, combs his fingers through them, makes a scissor motion with his fingers as if contemplating trimming them back. Every now and again, though, Brad sees Terry glance over at him, just for a moment, before looking away. Brad tries not to think much of it, but he notices it a bit more sharply each time it happens until, finally, Terry turns his head to face him.

“Hey, uh, can I ask you a question?” Brad can hear trepidation in his voice, and it sets him a little on edge, but he nods anyway. Terry doesn’t seem immune to it either; he’s got his nervous smile on his face, and Brad can tell he’s fighting to hold eye contact. “When you said ‘not yet,’ did you mean, like, not yet? Or did you mean not ever?”

“Not yet,” Brad says, but there is a part of him that wants to take the latter option.

“Does that happen all the time?” Terry asks, but Brad knows what he really means. How fucked is he? How crazy? Brad looks away for a moment, runs his hand over his sweat-slick scalp.

“Not all the time.” He knows it didn’t happen the last time he was with someone, at least not at first. It only hit him when he sobered up, alone in his bed, and he remembers being so glad that the girl didn’t stay the night because he took ten painkillers and woke up in a room full of people, cops and ambulances and Rick with this godawful look on his face, something he hadn’t seen since they were kids.

“Would it help if we talked about it?” Terry suggests. Brad shrugs off a bit of discomfort. He looks at Terry from the corner of his eye to get a gauge on where the conversation is going, but Terry’s face seems wholly focused on something else.

“What’s ‘it’?”

“What we’d do.” Brad feels like he’s in high school again, sitting on Cheeks’s bedroom floor with Rick and Sticky, smoking the cheapest weed their pooled money could buy, windows propped open by Cheeks’s unused textbooks. It would always be Rick that started those kind of conversations, talking about girls from their class, people Brad barely remembered then much less now. Do you think she’s hot? Would you fuck her? And Brad remembers the looks on all of their faces, not excited so much as embarrassed, even a little uncomfortable. Brad, his face hot, would nod because he felt like it was the right thing to do. But he’s not fourteen anymore, and he should definitely be less embarrassed when Terry says the word “do.”

“I’m not really good at talking about that kind of stuff.” He cracks a crooked smile, looks over to Terry. “You probably already knew that.” Terry smiles.

“You don’t have to be good. It’s not, like, a sex thing. Well, no, it is a sex thing, but there’s no pressure. It’s just seeing what we’re both into and how we could make it better for each other. You know,” he begins, and Brad can see something in Terry’s face light up, just a little, “all healthy relationships are rooted in communication. That’s a hint from Care Terr.” Brad pauses on the word _relationships_ , feels it on his lips. It’s smooth, rolls easily along the ridges of his brain.

“Care Terr?”

“Y-you get it? Like a Care Bear. You remember those, right?” Brad nods. He does, in fact, remember Care Bears. “It wasn’t my best work, okay? I normally have a little more time to come up with those. That isn’t the point!”

“No, no, we can try it.”

“Okay! Cool.” But the conversation doesn’t start for a long while, the silence of expectation tight in the air between them.

“So, uh,” Brad begins, his head cocked low, and he tries to summon up something sultry in his voice, but he sounds just the same as ever when he asks, “What are you wearing?” Terry looks at him, lips slightly parted, eyes wide in confusion, but, as the realization dawns on him, his mouth twists into a grin which erupts into a howling laughter. He grips his stomach, kicks his long legs. “It wasn’t even that funny,” Brad says, reaching over with his good hand to try and cover Terry’s mouth, but he’s smiling.

“It’s funny because it’s you!”

“Shut the fuck up!” Fly shouts from beside the empty fire pit.

“Man,” Terry says, still giggling, “fuck that guy.” Brad chuckles in agreement. Another silence, a little more comfortable then the last. Terry leans his head against Brad’s shoulder, hums a content little note, and Brad can feel something loosen in his chest little by little. “Uh, so what do you like?”

“What?”

“Like, sex.” Brad looks away from Terry and thinks back to every time he had ever been with someone, a collage of misremembered parts, limbs twisted, mouths and eyes.

“I don’t know.”

“Like, do you like it rough? Do you…” A prompt. Brad could work with a prompt.

“No,” he begins, trying to sculpt his thoughts into something coherent. “I guess I like it more, I don’t know, gentle.” He shrugs. He’s got a word in his mind. Nice.

“Are you a top or a bottom or, like, what?” Brad shrugs again.

“I’ve never had sex with a guy.” Terry nods, no surprises. “I’d probably be more of a top, I guess.”

“Oh, that’s good because I’m not,” Terry says lightly. “Like, I could top? I have, but it’s not my thing. You got any kinks or whatever?”

“Fuck, I don’t know.”

“Anything in particular you like? It doesn’t have to be anything weird.” Brad tries to list out things he had done in the past that he’d liked, but, again, it’s too indistinct and bleary to pull out anything specific. He remembers he had liked things at points, that there were good moments in there somewhere, but he cannot find them now that he needs them.

“I can’t think of anything.” Brad pauses, another attempt, but he comes back blank. “Nothing. I’m boring. What about you?” Brad asks, and, little by little, a smile grows on Terry’s face. “What?” Brad asks.

“Nothing,” Terry says unconvincingly.

“Tell me.”

“I’m so embarrassed now,” he laughs, looking pointedly at not-Brad. “I’m gonna sound like such a freak going after you.” Brad doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing. Terry runs his hand through his bangs, doesn’t look up. “Uh, well, I like a lot of stuff. I used to be really into getting tied up. Less so now, but I’m still totally down. Also, like, humiliation? Like, verbal, and, uh,” Terry looks like he’s got a phrase in mind, but he reconsiders and replaces it with, “other stuff. Public is cool, but I don’t think there’s many places where you can fuck that aren’t kind of in public nowadays, so yeah. Mostly, though, I like it super rough? Just, like, pull my hair. Hold me down. Fuckin’… Fuckin’ ruin me, you know?” Brad doesn’t know, but he nods anyway. Terry laughs at nothing in particular. “Like, choking? Leaving bruises. Stuff like that.”

“Shit,” Brad murmurs.

“No, not into that,” Terry says, and he laughs at his own joke, but there’s a moment of uncertainty, a tone in Terry’s voice, a feeling in Brad’s chest as he thinks about the logistics of it all, pain and receiving it and causing it, causing it, causing it. “It’s a lot. I know.”

“I don’t know if I could do some of that,” Brad admits.

“No, that’s totally cool.” If Terry is disappointed, he doesn’t show it. “We don’t even have to, like, do anything big. We don’t have to do anything! I just like being with you! That’s all that matters, right?”

“Right.” A pause. Brad takes another sip of his water, but something stands out in his mind. “What counts as something big?”

“I don’t know, man. I was just saying stuff,” he says. “Anal is probably a big thing.” Brad almost snorts. This really is high school all over again.

“Probably.” Terry smiles and leans his head against Brad’s shoulder, and Brad sets the bottle on the ground in favor of letting his fingers brush against Terry’s, not quite holding hands but something close enough. But, the longer they sit together in the shade, the cooler and denser Brad’s thoughts grow, and, in the empty spaces, a new worry grows like a mold, fetid. It lingers on him even when they start back on the road, and, in the dark of their campsite, as Brad drifts off to sleep, third shift, he can feel it as a single question: what if he can’t?

 

  
Brad’s got a plan in a bottle. It’s not a new plan by any means, and it’s a plan that has almost never gone well, but it’s going to work this time. Brad likes Terry more than he remembers liking anyone before this, wants this more than he remembers wanting it ever before.

They start drinking that night around the fire, all four of them, straight whiskey.

“How come we never have soda at the same time we have whiskey?” Terry asks, and the others seem to give it some thought, but they can’t come up with an answer. “Like, we really need to plan that better. I’m not a freshman in college. I can’t do handle pulls anymore. I have standards.”

“You have standards?” Queen asks.

“I mean, they’re low, but they’re there.” Terry ends the sentence with a swig from the bottle, but it’s only a second before he pulls away, coughing. “Holy shit,” he gasps, “bad idea.” The group laughs as Terry offers out the bottle. Brad takes it and pulls from it, a solid couple seconds before he swallows and takes a breath. Queen chuckles, claps out a slow applause. “Dude,” Terry begins, rocking forward as he speaks, and Brad can tell that, in spite of the fact that Terry’s drunk less than half of what he has, he’s definitely feeling it. “How do you do it? That stuff literally tastes like fire.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“You drink like an asshole,” Fly grumbles like he wants no one to hear while also making sure that everyone can hear. “We’re gonna run out. Shit was expensive.”

“Quit bitching,” Queen drawls, not even looking at Fly. “Money’s for spending, and whiskey’s for drinking. Besides, he’s doing you a favor. I know I ain’t carrying the stuff tomorrow. I’m about to throw out my damn back with how much shit you guys got in there.”

“You don’t carry it any more than the rest of us do, and you know it.” Queen snorts.

“’The rest of us?’ You didn’t carry it more than an hour today before you started whining about how someone else should take it.” Even in the firelight, Brad sees Fly’s face grow redder with every word.

“You know what? You’re a fucking bitch, and-“

“Guys, guys, stop fighting,” Terry says, a grin spreading across his face as he continues, “You need to, like… You guys are like Will Smith and the white guy in _Men in Black_. You gotta learn to, like, accept each other and work together so you can get eaten by the alien but, like, shoot your way out so that one of you can retire.”

“Is that what happens in _Men in Black_?” Queen asks.

“I don’t know, man. I’m drunk.”

“Go to sleep. You’re getting sloppy,” Queen says.

“Here’s a hint: don’t be like me.” But Terry stays up even as Queen and Fly settle in for the night, and Brad volunteers to take first shift. He’s drunk enough to feel it in every sense, an emotion as much as it is a physical sensation, but he’s sober enough to know that he probably should stay up a bit longer and drink some water, do something to head off the hangover he’s certain is coming in the morning. At first, it looks like Terry might not be able to stay up for the whole watch; he lies in the dirt, flat on his back at first before rolling over onto his side and staring into the middle distance with heavy-lidded eyes. Brad watches him, a vague disappoint manifesting a headache. Or maybe it’s just a regular headache. Then, Terry’s eyes squint open, and he rolls over until he’s on his hands and knees, crawling over to Brad’s side. In spite of the sudden tightness in Brad’s chest, it’s probably for the better; he knows he can’t stay up much longer without assistance. His engine is flooded, glazed-over. Terry pushes himself into a sitting position.

“Hey,” Terry says, sleep weighing down his voice. Brad nods. “Do you think Queen and Fly are gonna hook up?”

“What the fuck, Terry?”

“I’m just saying. What if they do? Could you imagine kissing Fly? His mouth probably tastes so bad. Like seven different kinds of vomit.”

“What are the different kinds of vomit?”

“Dude, there’s, like, a whole organizational system, and...” Terry’s voice trails off into nothing, nothing, nothing, until Brad hears his voice again. “You doing okay?” Terry asks, and Brad realizes that he’s lost track of time.

“I’m so drunk,” Brad says, not sure if he’s telling Terry or himself.

“Me too, pal,” Terry laughs. He winks at Brad as he takes another swig from the bottle near their feet. “Like, I’m definitely at ‘gonna be really sick in the morning’ levels here.” He flops back on the ground. His eyes are closed, and his lips are parted just a little bit. “Don’t let me fall asleep.”

“Me too,” Brad says. “Maybe we should’ve...”

“No, definitely,” Terry agrees. At least he knew what he was saying. “Shit,” Terry begins, and, as the silence prevails, Brad tries to practice the same precognition. He comes up with nothing. “We gotta think of something to talk about, or we’re gonna fall asleep, and it would be really fucking embarrassing if Queen got kidnapped twice.” Brad nods. “Did you go to college?”

“No,” he answers, and he wants to stop it there until he realizes that he should probably return the favor. “What about you?”

“Kind of,” Terry says. There’s a moment where neither of them speak. Brad makes a noise that feels like a question, and Terry says something else, but Brad can’t seem to form the sound into words. He is just agreeing, not even to anything in particular, filling the pauses with sound. In a more lucid moment, Brad hears Terry’s voice, quiet and tender.

“-very lonely,” he says.

“Yeah,” Brad agrees. A few moments later, Terry says something else, and Brad affirms, “Yeah.”

Then, at some point, they’re kissing, sloppy on both of their parts. Terry is sitting in his lap, his face slightly above Brad’s, and their hands are gripping and claiming and, even though he’s overwhelmed with this feeling of being not in control, of being a bag in the wind, a jellyfish, a ghost haunting his own body, it’s okay. It’s all okay.

He isn’t sure when he wakes up for good; there are moments when he’s awake and lying on the ground, and Terry’s still asleep beside him, and there are moments when Fly is saying something, all nasal and consonants, and there are moments when he rolls onto his side and vomits into the dirt, and Terry tries to move his hair out of the way and wipe up his mouth, and Queen pats him on the back and says something, and Brad wants to shrug away the touch, but he can only cough the last bit of vomit from his throat and wait for the moment to pass. Suddenly, he’s sitting upright, and it’s daytime, and the rest of the group is packing up the camp site, and he can feel his pulse pounding in his skull like a gunshot. He sits there, empty save the pain, until someone speaks to him.

“Get up, bald man. You gotta walk this one off,” Queen says, rough but not unkind. Brad grumbles. “You want some water or something?” He nods, holds out his hand until there is something in it, a bottle, a bit of jerky. “Don’t throw this up.”  Brad nods again and brings the bottle to his lips. The water is warm, and it washes up the taste of bile and alcohol, so thick and fetid that he wants to spit it out, but he knows that they can’t afford to waste water. He swallows and takes a bite of the jerky. “You got ten more minutes. Don’t go back to sleep.” Brad nods, mumbles an okay, and waits.

Eventually, Queen returns to pull Brad onto his feet, and the four start walking. Brad takes up the end of the line, steps slow, head throbbing. Every now and then, he looks up to see what direction Queen is leading them in, to see Fly making a show of how he’s ignoring the rest of them, arms crossed. Terry walks a few paces ahead, his head hung low and looking worse for the wear.

“You doing okay?” Brad asks. Terry turns his head, looking for the source of the voice, and, when he finds Brad, he manages a smile.

“Eh,” Terry says, hanging back until he and Brad walk side by side. “Definitely been better. How about you?”

“Like shit,” he says.

“Hangover?”

“Yep.”

“Same.” He pauses, and Brad can feel him thinking hard. When he speaks again, his voice has taken a turn for the serious. “You sure you’re okay?” Brad nods, not quite sure what he’s getting at. “Okay. I just didn’t know with what happened last night.” Brad says nothing for too long. “Wait, how drunk were you, dude?” Terry ends the question with a little laugh, but it’s on uneven footing.

“I was really fucked up.” 

“Like, what do you mean? Do you remember…” His voice trails off into something that doesn’t register through the throbbing in Brad’s skull. He doesn’t think he’d know how to answer even if he tried. “Oh my God,” Terry murmurs, horror dawning on his face. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I had no clue. I thought you were just, shit, I don’t know what I thought. I wouldn’t have done anything if I had known you were that drunk, dude.” Brad can see the panic in Terry’s face, that tone to his voice back again.

“You were drunk too. It’s fine, Terr,” Brad says, too sick to think hard on what Terry is saying.

“I wasn’t as drunk as you if you can’t remember any of it!”

“It’s _fine_ ,” Brad repeats, and he means for the firmness in his voice to be a reassuring thing, but it comes out harsh, fermented-bitter. Terry doesn’t respond, just looks at him, eyes shocked wide and watery. He swallows hard around nothing before he turns to the dusty road before them, something coiling behind his eyes. Brad knows he’s done something wrong again, something terrible, that he’s ruined it, but it’s a wordless thought that offers no solutions. They walk, silent, for a long while.

“What happened?” Brad asks.

“We just fooled around a little,” Terry answers. “It didn’t go super far. It was just, like, some touching over the clothes, and, then, you got sick, so we stopped.”  Brad nods, hums a note with no meaning beyond acknowledgement. He doesn’t know what to feel. He doesn’t feel anything. “I’m so sorry, Brad. I was kind of in and out, but I should’ve…” Brad shakes his head.

“It doesn’t matter.”

They don’t speak for the rest of the walk. They don’t speak when they stop in a little cave, and they work in near silence building the fire, nibbling at the few bits of jerky still in their pack. Brad only hears Terry’s voice when he offers to take first watch, and, as Queen and Fly find opposite sides of the cave, their eyes finally catch each other’s and hold.

“You staying up too?” Terry asks, but Brad can’t tell if he wants a particular answer. It’s an uncertainty that drops, heavy, in his chest, presses his lungs down onto his heart. His voice squeezes from his nervous throat.

“I like staying up with you,” he answers. Terry’s expression remains stony for a moment before the meaning of the sentence connects, and he softens into not quite a smile but something close enough to let Brad know that he probably doesn’t hate him. “Do you want me to stay?”

“Of course I do.” Brad smiles, hoping the look on his face will communicate this feeling that cuts through the numbness, something he hasn’t quite found the words for yet. Terry smiles back, and Brad can see him shift as if he were about to move, but he doesn’t. “Please don’t do that again,” Terry says, his voice fond but serious.

“Do what?” Brad asks.

“Get that drunk.” He swallows hard, refines his request. “Not for that.”

“Okay,” Brad says.

“You promise?” Brad sucks in his lips, averts his eyes. “Like, if you don’t want to, that’s fine. I don’t care, but don’t get blackout so you’ll be comfortable with it. That’s not healthy.” Brad inhales the beginning of a sentence but stops himself short, reconsiders, before answering.

“I’ve never had sober sex.” Terry’s brow furrows something deep.

“That’s fucked, dude.” Brad puffs out a humorless laugh. “Do you even want to have sex? Like, am I pressuring you into this? Because, like-“

“You’re not. I really do want to because you’re…” He pauses, rephrases. “We’re in a _relationship_.” He says the last word like it feels: big, heavy, important.

“You don’t have to have sex to be in a relationship, Brad.”

“It’s more than just that though,” Brad says, frustration jagged in his voice. “I like you, and I want to be normal with you. I feel like I could. I’ve just gotta try harder.”

“Who cares about normal, dude? Like, look around. There’s not much that’s normal anymore. And, I mean, I’m not normal. I don’t think I’ve ever been.” Brad puts his head in his hand and sighs. He glances over at Terry, who places a hand on Brad’s back. The little touch is a comfort. Brad leans into Terry, curls up beneath his arm as he stares out into the warmth of the fire. It occurs to him that he’s never been held like this.

“I want to have sex with you. Just… Can we work up to it?”

“Yeah. Of course.” Terry places a kiss on the top of Brad’s head, and, then, there is silence, not-silence, insect songs and animal sounds and the rest of the party breathing in their sleep and little words. Terry whispers, not-whispers about the mountains that surround them, about the deer, about how he’s not an outdoors person but how he’s grown to like sleeping by a fire. It’s like camping, Terry says. He had never been camping before. Brad nods, asks questions when appropriate, but, soon, the talk dies down, and they are alone, not-alone of the night, holding each other until their shift ends, and it is time to rest.

 

 

“Would you want to try it?” Terry asks.

“I guess,” Brad says, but he soon amends. “Yeah. We can try it.”

“We don’t have to. I just thought it’d be low pressure, you know? I wouldn’t even look if you didn’t want me to.” Brad nods, tries to muster up certainty in his voice.

“No, we can try it. And you can look if you want.”

“Sick.” A little lull falls in conversation, and Brad watches as Terry’s eyes dart towards the fire, back towards Brad. “Like, now?”

“Sure,” Brad says, but another moment passes, and Terry still has that look on his face. “Sorry. I’m making this awkward.”

“No, you’re not. I just don’t know how to get this started,” Terry says, a laugh. “I mean, the masturbation part I get, but I normally don’t do it mutually. You feel?” Brad puffs out a little laugh, and Terry’s smile widens, just enough for Brad to notice. “Uh, so, like, what do you normally do when you jerk off or whatever?”

“I don’t know,” Brad replies with a shrug. “Look at some porn, I guess.”

“Oh, duh, we literally have seventy-five titty mags in a bag right now. Want me to get?” Brad nods. Terry stands, padding over to where their pack sits by the fire. He squats down and begins to dig through it. Without turning to look back at Brad, he asks, “You want ‘Backdoor Barbies’ or ‘Thick Thunder’ or ‘Big Trucks, Fast Fucks’ or what?”

“Did you make those up?”

“As much as I would like to say yes, no.”

“Let’s see the trucks then.”

“Good, because I was really curious about how they’d convey the speed of those fucks in a still medium. I’ll grab a couple.” Terry pushes himself up and walks back to the corner, waving the magazines in the air. His other hand forms a fist around something, but Brad quickly forgets it as Terry reclaims his place at his side and spreads the magazines between them.

“Jesus, this is so middle school,” Brad says.

“Is this what you did in middle school?” Terry asks. Brad doesn’t answer, just flips open an issue of “Booty Bonanza” with a cover bearing a headless body in a barely-there thong and the promise that “Marissa Shows It All!” inside. “You didn’t even pick the truck one?” Terry says, giving him a little nudge. He digs through the stack until he finds one with a topless blonde sitting, legs spread, on the hood of a black monster truck. “I’ll give them this: that truck is big.”

Brad laughs, but he soon returns his focus to trying to get himself hard. He palms himself through his pants, slow, and tries to think sexy thoughts, something about being with Marissa as she showed it all. Touching her. Or something. The thought doesn’t go anywhere. He just focuses on his hand as it is, meaningless friction.

“Does this do it for you?” Terry asks. “The porn, I mean.” Brad makes a noncommittal noise.

“Kind of. Not really. I got kind of a low sex drive anyway, and this is…” He struggles to find a word.

“Gross?” Terry suggests.

“Kind of gross. And I like women.”

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t, but, even if I did, I don’t know if this would be my thing.” Beside him, Brad hears a click, plastic. He glances over, trying to be inconspicuous, but Terry seems to notice. “Oh, yeah, I got lube.” He holds up a little, translucent bottle, the shadow of a fluid moving inside.

“Where?”

“Bought it a long time ago. Hella expensive. Dude, you gotta think: there are no women. There’s a lot of sad, desperate ass stuff happening. Or at least, like, sad, desperate J-ing O. People are gonna homebrew some lube.” Terry makes a movement towards the button of his pants, but he pauses for a moment to look Brad in the eye as if to warn him that, yes, this is happening, now is your chance to look away. Brad doesn’t. Terry pulls down his pants and underwear in one go, just enough to pull himself out. His cock is pink, ringed red with a circumcision scar, still semi-soft. He gingerly pours a bit of lube in his hand before grabbing his length and stroking it fast and loose. It doesn’t take long for him to get completely hard. He’s perfectly average-sized.

Brad isn’t sure if it’s the visual or his hand, but he can feel himself getting hard. He unbuttons his pants, pushes his pants down until his underwear sits just below his balls, spits into his hand, and gets to work. When Brad touches himself, he does it like a chore, just keeps his eyes open long enough to make sure he’s doing it right. He doesn’t like looking at his dick. It’s not much to look at anyway, short, curved upward, surrounded by thick, dark hair.

“I can look?” Terry asks.

“Uh huh.” Out of his peripheral, Brad can see Terry’s head turn, just a little.

“Shit, dude, you’re big.” Brad’s face flashes hot.

“No, I’m not. Yours is bigger.”

“Longer, maybe. Yours is thick though.” Brad doesn’t respond. “It’s nice. I like it.” Brad thinks of saying “thanks” or “you too” or something else polite, but he decides that would make it weird. He says nothing. He just looks Terry in the eyes, glances down to Terry’s dick, to his own.

“You doing okay? You’re quiet.” Terry asks.

“Yeah,” Brad says to both.

“You into dirty talk?”

“Sure.”

“I want your cock in me.” Brad’s throat tightens all at once, and his stomach turns, and it’s not a bad feeling, it’s good even, but it’s _a lot_. Terry says it so easily, almost casually, a little bit of a laugh, and Brad doesn’t know how to respond, but it’s okay because Terry is still talking. “Like, I wanted it before, but, now that I’ve seen it, I want it so bad.” He smiles, but it’s different than usual. “I bet it feels so good. You could make me come so easily.”

“Holy shit,” Brad whispers.

“Yeah?” Terry asks, something low and sly and teasing in his voice. Brad doesn’t answer. He leans into Terry, takes his jaw in his spit-slick hand, and pulls him into a kiss. Terry hums into Brad’s mouth. The kiss breaks only so Terry can speak.

“I wanna touch you.” It’s both a statement and a question. Brad considers it for a moment before nodding, whispering affirmation. Terry eases Brad’s knees open and wedges himself between them. Their hips line up imperfectly, dicks resting against one another, mismatched. Brad reaches to hold them, but Terry pushes his hand away. “I got it. Don’t worry.” Brad nods and watches as Terry takes their cocks in his hand. Little by little, the space between the two of them closes until their foreheads touch, and Brad can feel Terry’s breath on his skin.

“This okay?”

“Yeah,” he says. Terry’s forehead moves against his own. Brad glances up to see that Terry is already watching him.

“I just want you to feel good, dude,” Terry says softly. His voice is kind, almost sad. “You deserve it.” Brad wants to argue because he doesn’t. He doesn’t deserve it, and he knows Terry means every word he says, but he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get why Terry has stayed with him for so long, after seeing him at his worst, too sick to move from withdrawal, covered in blood from beating his friend’s face in with a spiked club, mid-panic attack because of something he saw, thought he saw, half-remembered.

“Hey, you doing okay?” Terry asks, the hand on their cocks slowing. Brad takes a deep breath that he didn’t know he needed. His head buzzes as if all the energy that was supposed to go into breathing had gone straight to his skull. He closes his eyes.

“Hey, can we...”

“Need to stop?” Brad nods, and Terry backs off. He feels Terry separate from him, the memory of skin against skin being replaced by a cool nothing.

“I wanna keep going. Just- just give me a second.”

“Yeah, no worries.” Brad focuses on breathing.

“It’s a lot, you know?” he says at last.

“Yeah, definitely.”

“I start thinking, and, like…” He sighs.

“You’re preaching to the choir over here, man. I’m nervous, like, one hundred percent of the time, but it’s more than just nervous. It’s, like, a completely different emotion. It feels like I’m dying,” Terry says with a little laugh as if to soften the blow.

“What do you do for it?”

“Cry?” Terry laughs again. Something pangs in Brad’s chest, sharp. “I don’t know. I used to be on a bunch of meds for it, but, like, they never fixed it.” He pauses, reconsiders. “Fixed isn’t the right word. I’m not broken, but, like, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah.” Brad takes another deep breath before he opens his eyes. Terry is sitting right in front of him, never really gone. “It feels like you are.” A pause. Then, he adds, “Feels like I am right now.”

“You’re not,” Terry says, and there’s something too soft, too dangerous in his tone. Brad shrugs a “let’s not talk about it” shrug. Terry nods, understands, but he reaches forward to hold Brad’s hand, first with one hand and then with both. His thumbs trace over the back of his hand, over his bruised knuckles. It’s nice.

“You wanna keep going?” Brad asks.

“You good?”

“Yeah.” Terry nods and reclaims his place between Brad’s legs. His hand wastes no time in resuming its quick pace on their cocks.

“Kiss me,” he says, and Brad takes him by the jaw until their lips are pressed together, little, closed-mouth kisses that give way to tongues and clicking teeth, gasps as the hand loses its rhythm. Terry breaks the kiss first. “Shit, sorry, I’m gonna come.”

“Okay,” Brad says.

“Sorry. I’ll get you off. I promise.”

“It’s fine, Terr. Really.”

“Oh, fuck,” Terry whispers, a hitch in his voice, and Brad isn’t sure what it’s in response to until he says it again, _fuck_ , his eyes screwed tight and his lips red, saliva-wet, parted just enough so that Brad can see his teeth. When Terry comes, Brad feels it first, a solid twitch. “Fuck!” Terry’s voice is somewhere between a shout and a sob. Brad instinctively pulls him into his neck in an attempt to muffle him, but the tension is already fading from Terry’s shoulders, and, when Brad looks down, he can see a heavy rivulet of come dripping down the length of Terry’s cock, a few more weak spurts as he strokes himself through his orgasm.

“Fuck,” Terry says, a soft satisfaction in his voice, and, then, “Shit. Sorry. I wanted that to be more for you, and, like…”

“It’s fine. It takes me a long time to get there,” Brad says. Terry pulls away from Brad’s neck only to place a soft kiss on his lips. When their eyes finally catch, Terry’s smiling.

“We’ve got time. Want me to keep going like this, or…”

“This is good.”

“Alright,” Terry says, and the two separate for a moment. “Let me just…” Terry moves back to the pack by the fire and fishes out a few scraps of cloth to clean himself off with. When he returns, he doesn’t sit between Brad’s legs but rather under his arm, his head on Brad’s chest. He takes Brad’s dick in one hand and strokes it, not too fast, not too slow. He glances up every now and again.

"You’re so quiet,” Terry says again. “Am I doing okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Are my handjob skills, like, lacking? Do I need to go back to, like, handjob college? Get my BH? My Bachelor of Handjobs?” Brad laughs, a little puff of air. “That was a joke.”

“I laughed.”

“You were quiet though.”

“I’m just quiet,” Brad says, tries to work through his discomfort. “In general. Besides, I sound stupid when I get loud.”

“I like the way you sound. It’s hot as hell, dude.” Brad’s sure he makes a face at the word “hot.” It feels incongruous with any other image he’s held of himself, fat, short, weird-looking, not to mention the new scars on his face that he feels more than sees. He doesn’t even want to try to dissect himself to figure out what parts of him could be considered attractive because he’s sure he’d find something new to hate. His stomach gets tight just thinking about it. “You getting uncomfortable again?”

“A little bit,” Brad admits.

“Sorry. Want me to shut up?”

“No,” Brad says. Then, a bit softer, “Talk dirty to me again.” Terry smiles, a little chuckle.

“Your cock feels so good in my hand.” Brad exhales, just loud enough to hear, and Terry’s smile widens. He rubs his thumb over the glans, smears the little bit of precome into nothing against his skin. “So fucking warm and thick. This is gonna be all I jerk off to for, like, weeks.” Brad squeezes his eyes shut, lets out a little grunt. “You gonna come, Brad?” Terry asks, and Brad nods. “Yeah, dude, come for me.” It only takes a moment, and Brad’s falling over the edge. He groans, rough and throaty, as he shoots across his stomach, onto his poncho. “Yeah, that’s it. So good.” Brad sighs as Terry milks the last bit of come from him. “So good.”

“No more,” Brad murmurs, oversensitive.

“No more?” Terry echoes, and he lets go of Brad’s softening cock in favor of rubbing come into the hair on Brad’s stomach. It cools against his skin, uncomfortable but not quite enough to distract from the warm afterglow, the heat of the fire. When he eventually opens his eyes, the fire almost burns his eyes, so he looks down at the mess.

“Dammit,” he grumbles.

“What?”

“It’s all over my clothes.” Terry wipes a bit of come from Brad’s poncho, observes the dark, wet stain left behind.

“Whoops. We can get it out, and, if not, maybe you could cover it up with an even grosser stain.” Brad exhales, and it sounds a lot louder than he intended. Everything feels a bit off, his body stiff and clogged and his mind heavier than usual, feelings that only grow more intense with every passing second. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Brad says.

“Okay. I’m not sorry then.” Brad smiles, but it’s more out of politeness than anything. Terry notices. “You feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just processing, I guess.” Terry nods, but the air around him feels empty, like it’s waiting to be filled by an explanation. Brad’s stomach tightens around a cavernous nothing. “I’m okay. I’ll be okay. I just need to process.”

“Okay.” Terry tries to sound comfortable, but the unease shows through, only growing more apparent in the silence that follows. “You wanna talk about something else?” he offers.

“Yeah,” Brad says, and, for a moment, he worries that it’s an empty offer, that the situation is too far gone for any conversation, but Terry soon returns with a topic.

“Did you know I can’t ride a bike?” he asks.

“You can’t?” Brad tries to match his normal tone of voice.

“Nope. My parents never taught me when I was a kid. I never even owned one, I don’t think.”

“How come?”

“I mean, I didn’t have the time. I was in the hospital a lot, so I guess everyone was more worried about, like, ‘Oh, is Terry gonna die?’ rather than, ‘Oh, hey, can Terry do some sick-ass Tony Hawk shit?’ The answer to both is no, by the way.” Brad snorts, and there’s a moment where he wonders if it’s okay for him to laugh, but Terry smiles, looks him in the eye.

“You don’t have to do Tony Hawk shit to be able to ride a bike,” Brad says. “You just have to move your feet and stay balanced.”

“See, but I can’t even do that! Not at the same time, anyway.”

“Have you ever tried?” Brad asks.

“Yes!” Terry laughs. He’s getting animated now, miming a pair handlebars and shimmying his shoulders as he continues, “I was at a party one time in college, and, like, granted, I was shitfaced, but this dude offered to teach me how to ride. I mean, ride a bike. I knew… anyway, I got on, and he was pushing me, and I was doing really good, but, then, he let go, and I just, like, totally ate it in the parking lot. Like, I scraped up my face so bad that I, like, instantly sobered up.”

“Did you not have training wheels?”

“They don’t make training wheels for grown-ass men!” Terry says, and Brad laughs a silent, closed mouth laugh, just a smile and a shaking in his shoulders. Terry doesn’t say anything after, just smiles and watches Brad for a long while.

“I’m feeling better, I think,” Brad says.

“Good. I’m glad,” Terry says. “You wanna talk about it?”

“I liked it. I just…” He pauses, tries to find the words.  “I don’t know. I just felt a little weird afterwards. Not as bad as before, but I needed a little time to cool down.” He pauses again, and he hopes Terry will say something so that he won’t have to keep going, but he doesn’t. “It’s nothing you did. Sometimes,” he swallows hard, forces out his sentences one word at a time. “Even if I like sex stuff, I feel bad about it. Guilty, I guess, maybe, like I did something wrong or will do something wrong or something.” He tries to go over what he has just said, but the words fade quickly from his memory, and the ones that remain sound not quite right, too simple to address the feeling. Nothing comes to replace them. He just sighs. “I don’t know. There’s a lot of stuff I don’t know how to explain.”

“No, that makes sense,” Terry says in his serious and respectful way that instantly smooths the rough frustration in Brad’s mind. It almost makes Brad envious how easily the right words come for him. “You didn’t do anything wrong though. I promise.” Brad nods acknowledgement. Terry says nothing for a moment as if to open the floor for discussion before moving on to the next topic, but Brad has nothing left to say. Not now. “Would you want to do it again?” Terry asks. “Not right now. I mean ever. With me.” Brad thinks hard, pushes through the lingering not-quite-guilt and tries to focus on the now, the good.

“Yeah,” he says, a little nod. “Yeah. I think so, yeah.” Terry smiles. “Do you want me to teach you how to ride a bike?”

“I don’t know, man. Bikes have betrayed me once before. Would it be on the little bike?” Terry asks.

“It’s a shorter distance to fall,” Brad reminds him. Terry giggles, pulling his knees up to his chest.

“I’ll think about it.”

 

 

“Woo! That adrenaline though!” Terry laughs, popping his shoulder as he stands over what’s left of the Road Scholars. “Did you see with the- with the guy with the bat? He went, like, right for my face. I swear to God, I saw my life flash before my eyes.”

“How was it?” Queen Roger asks.

“Almost getting hit in the face or my life? Because the answer is the same for both.” Queen chuckles and takes a seat beside the mouth of the cave to Factory Town. Fly dangles his feet from the edge of the cliff. “You guys doing okay?”

“Eh,” Queen says, lighting a cigarette.

“I think I have a rock in my shoe,” Fly says.

“Let’s take a little break,” Brad suggests. The gang mumbles assent before settling into relative silence.

“Hey,” Terry says. “You wanna go somewhere?” Brad glances over, checks to see if anyone is watching. No one is; Fly is busy casting pebbles off the cliff, listening as they click down the mountainside, and, if it weren’t for the lit cigarette dangling from his lips, Queen could be asleep.

“Sure.” The two shuffle off towards the mouth of the tunnel. Queen opens his eyes as they round the corner, gives them a look that sets Brad on edge, but he tries to ignore it. It takes a while for Brad’s eyes to adjust, and he can only tell where Terry is in relation to him by the sound of his footsteps or when their hands bump together. Summer sweat cools on his skin until he can feel himself shiver. He waits until they’re completely surrounded by the dark of the cave to speak.

“You think Queen knows?” he asks. Terry snorts.

“About us? Oh, definitely.” Brad doesn’t answer at first, takes a moment to think about _us_. It isn’t the first time he’s considered it. From the moment he met Terry, he had been reluctant to think about the two of them as a unit. Finding Buddy was a mission for _him_ , _his_ chance to make things right. But, sure enough, Terry had been with him from the beginning, from the moment Brad found Cheeks and was too concerned with finding Buddy to remember to bury one of his best friends to the first few nights where they slept, too-close, in a stranger’s tent to when Terry helped him bandage what was left of his arm, the arm he had given up for him, to their first kiss. It had been the two of them for a while now. Still, Brad can’t help but think about how long they will stay together, how long they can ride this out, how faint Terry’s heartbeat feels when Brad lays his head on his chest, the knowledge that Brad could have let him die. But, before he can say any of this, Terry laughs. “Dude, we aren’t subtle.” Brad hums in response. “You embarrassed?”

“No,” Brad says, “Just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Us.”

“What do you think?”

“I like us.”

“I do too.” Terry touches Brad’s hand, slow as not to startle him, fingers intertwining. Terry leans into him, close enough that he can feel Terry’s breath against his whiskers, and they linger there for a moment before he kisses him. Their hands detach, moving to each other’s backs as they drift backwards until Brad’s back hits stone. A cool wet seeps in through his poncho, but it’s not enough to distract him from the sensation of Terry’s hand, his warm, dry skin, tracing his spine. Brad rests his weight against the wall of the tunnel, pulls Terry as close as he can manage, and gets lost in the other man’s lips. Technically speaking, Terry isn’t a great kisser; he’s actually kind of bad, all tongue and teeth, force and fire, but it’s enough to ease through the tension Brad holds in his muscles, safe and special and nice. He’s almost disappointed when the kiss breaks. Brad expects Terry to say something, to make a little joke, but he doesn’t. He just nuzzles his way past Brad’s beard until his lips are on the bare skin of his neck, and Brad can’t help but gasp. He can feel Terry smile against his skin before sucking a little patch of skin, a wet, popping sound when he releases it only to scrape at it with his teeth, give it little kisses before sucking at it again. Brad squirms, urging Terry closer.

“That feel good?” Terry asks. His thigh is wedged between Brad’s legs, and Brad knows he can feel how hard he is. He nods anyway. “You see why I like it so much when you do it to me?” Brad nods. “You want me to keep going?” Brad nods, makes a little sound that feels like a yes. Terry obliges, lavishing Brad’s neck with kisses and little bites. Brad just tries to keep composure. He tries to choke on the sounds in his throat, to keep himself from grinding against Terry’s leg. His fingers dig into Terry’s back as he breathes hard, steady, stomach heaving. He jumps when Terry squeezes his ass, lets out a moan.

“Hey, Brad?” He pulls back to look him in the face. “I could suck your dick if you want.” Brad jolts, and he’s not sure why. This isn’t the first time someone has offered to do this for him, and he’s accepted without a second thought before. But, when Terry asks, the words are electric.

“Do you want to?” he asks, a tremble as he inhales.

“I want it real bad,” Terry murmurs, a dry little laugh. He’s already sinking down to his knees, and, wow, this is happening. Terry’s looking up at him with his big, dark eyes, a little smile, as he unbuttons Brad’s pants. Brad runs his hand over his own scalp, inhales. He looks upwards, traces the stalactites. He tries to imagine running his fingers over them like the popcorn ceiling at his childhood home, but the image quickly overstays its welcome, and he returns to the one that is good-overwhelming. He looks back to Terry who hasn’t moved since he’s looked away. “I’ve thought about it before. A lot.”

“Yeah?” Brad asks, and he’s about to say something else, but Terry’s lips are on his inner thigh. He kisses him gently, open-mouthed, teeth scraping lightly over skin.  His breath blows, cool, over the saliva on Brad’s skin, and Brad chokes on his own breath. Terry pulls back for a moment to look up at Brad, waiting for a sign. “Keep going,” he whispers. Terry leans back into him as he buries his face in between Brad’s thigh and groin, drags his tongue over the crease. Brad shifts his weight back and forth and spreads his legs a little wider. Terry shifts his attention from Brad’s thighs to his balls, sucking one into his mouth. Brad clasps his hand over his mouth in an attempt to hold in a groan.

“You can make noise,” Terry says.

“Trying to keep it quiet so no one hears,” Brad answers.

“I want them to hear. I like it.”

“We just got out of one fight. I don’t wanna get in another with my dick out,” Brad mumbles, but Terry just laughs and moves on to place little, open-mouthed kisses at the base of Brad’s dick. He licks a path towards the head, his tongue flat against the vein. He kisses the head of his dick the same way he had his thighs, slow, more lips than tongue, before taking it into his mouth. He sinks down on it, hands braced against Brad’s thighs, tongue running along the underside of the shaft. Brad places his hand on the back of Terry’s head, tangling his fingers in his soft hair. “This okay?” Brad asks.

“Uh huh,” Terry whispers before flicking his tongue over the slit, barely giving Brad time to catch his breath before taking it down to the root. Brad can feel his dick hit the back of Terry’s throat, hot and slick and impossibly tight, for just a second before Terry pulls back so he can cough.

“Jesus, Terr.” Terry chuckles and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand before making another attempt. He swirls his tongue around the tip. This time, when he sinks down on Brad’s cock, he takes it all the way into his throat, his nose pressed into Brad’s pubic hair. He holds there for a moment, eyes focused upward. Then, he pulls back only to slide back down on it. Terry moans, and Brad can feel his eyes roll back. He can’t help but buck into his mouth. Terry lets out choking sound as his throat tightens around him, and, instantly, Brad knows that he fucked up, that he hurt Terry, that this was a mistake, and all he does is hurt people. He goes into repair mode, panic rising in his voice as he all but pushes Terry off his dick. “Shit, are you okay? I'm so sorry.” Terry inhales audibly, but he nods.

“I’m good,” he breathes, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand again. His sentences come out all at once, the only punctuation separating them sharp inhales. “That was good. You can do it rougher if you want.” Brad shakes his head, and he feels like he’s about to cry again, and he knows that’s just going to make things worse, but he doesn’t know what else he can do.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t-”

“Hey,” Terry says, taking Brad’s hand in his. “Hey, it’s fine. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m fine. You don’t have to be afraid of hurting me, dude. Promise,” he says, and, with a wink, he adds, “This isn’t my first rodeo.” Brad feels the beginning of another apology coming on, but Terry just repeats, “Hey,” a little sound like echolocation, bouncing back and confirming that he is there, he is there, he is there. He takes Brad’s hand with both of his, squeezes him. The panic fades slowly, shrinks back to wherever it hides within him. Brad inhales, exhales.

“You’ll let me know if you want to stop?” Brad asks, and he already knows the answer, but he needs to hear it.

“Of course. I’ll let you know.” Brad nods, and he tries to swallow through the knot in his throat. “Put your hand back in my hair.” Brad does what he’s told. Terry’s hands get back to work, one reaching to massage Brad’s balls and the other giving his cock a few good pumps before holding it firm at the base and taking it back into his mouth. He sucks hard on the head before releasing it with a loud, wet pop, and, then, it’s back in his throat. Brad looks down, hunting for Terry’s eyes in the dark. When he finds them, Terry gives a little nod. It’s okay. It’s fine. Brad gives a few shallow thrusts. Terry moans again, and Brad feels the vibration travel up his spine. He lets himself fuck Terry’s mouth, not too rough, but it’s still almost too much, like it shouldn’t be possible for something to feel this good, and, when Brad looks down, Terry’s rubbing himself through his pants, and, fuck, fuck, fuck-

Brad comes, hard, down Terry’s throat, pulls back over his tongue, his lips. It registers to him, split screen, half Terry’s face, half bleached, light-headed, nothing. He tilts his head back and enjoys the feeling blind. Terry coughs as Brad tucks himself back into his pants. When he finally looks back down, Terry is looking up at him. He sticks out his tongue like a girl in a porno, and, God, Brad doesn’t know where Terry learned that, but the image makes something within him twitch.

“Let me get you.” Brad eases himself down to his knees, and he watches as Terry unbuttons his pants just enough to free his cock.

“So polite!” Terry laughs, his voice a little raw. He coughs into his elbow, and, once his throat is clear, he turns back to Brad and smiles. Brad smiles back, just a little. He leans forward to kiss Terry, slow and contented, Terry’s hands settling on Brad’s back as Brad jerks him off. Brad can taste himself on Terry’s tongue, a bite of salt. He grimaces, but it isn’t enough to detract from how pleasantly warm Terry’s body is in the cool of the cave, the afterglow content, the way the dark almost fools him into believing they’re okay. It only takes a minute for Terry to come, moaning into Brad’s mouth.

Afterwards, they sit beside each other, silent, Terry’s head on Brad’s shoulder. It’s at least ten degrees colder in the cave, and what was originally a comforting cool begins to bite at his fingers, his damp back.

“You feeling okay?” Terry asks. His voice has something thick to it like the air before a thunderstorm, like his lungs are full of water.

“Yeah.” Mostly true. The discomfort is a small, familiar, enough for Brad to process or even forget if he turns his attention to something else, something like the strange tone in Terry’s voice. “What about you?”

“Yeah, that was really good. I’m tired now,” he says. A little laugh. “Not, like, fall asleep tired, but, like, I wanna curl up and watch some TV, you know?”

“You sound sad,” Brad says.

“Nah,” Terry says, but Brad can still hear it. “It was really nice.” A long pause. “It hasn’t been that nice in a while, you feel?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.” But Terry does know, and it only takes a moment for him to find the words. “Is it weird that I didn’t expect, like, reciprocation? Like, I’m more of a giver, I guess. You returning the favor kind of threw me off.”

“Did you not want me to?”

“No, no, I liked it. It just was unexpected. Like, most of the guys I’ve been with wouldn’t have done that.” He takes a moment to shape his next thought into a sentence. “A lot of stuff wasn’t really mutual, you know? It’s just got me thinking now. Like, I wish…” Brad can hear the rest of the sentence get caught in Terry’s throat, too dangerous to speak aloud. He swallows it down. “I don’t know. Sorry. That’s a bummer, huh?” he says, and he laughs again, but it’s different. “You’re a really nice dude. I liked it. That’s all I’m saying.” Brad feels like there’s something that should fill in the blank here, a conversation that needs to be had, but he doesn’t know what it is. He’s never been good at comforting words, not for Rick or Sticky or even Buddy. He just does what he always does: he changes the subject.

“Come closer. It’s cold.” He offers Terry an arm, and, to his relief, he accepts it, rests his weight against him. They stay there like that for a long while before they hear Queen and Fly shouting at each other from beyond the mouth of the cave. Slowly, joints popping, they make their way back into the outside world.

 

 

It’s dark when they finally get to the inn, all tired, all bloody, all too worn down to talk. Brad fumbles his way through a conversation with the innkeeper before handing him the mags and trudging his way up to the room. Brad is relieved to find that no one else is there. Fly flops into the first bed he comes across, squirms until he’s managed to pull the blankets completely over his head. He doesn’t take his mask off. Queen takes up the bed on the opposite end of the room. Brad goes for somewhere in the middle. He sits on the bed, inspecting his bruised knuckles, the stab wound from a fight two days before, slowly healing over. He only looks up when Terry sits on the bed across from him. Terry smiles at him before he lies down, buries himself beneath the covers. No need for a lookout tonight.

Sleep doesn’t come easy for Brad. It never has. For days, his body has ached for sleep, for a bed, for a moment where he wouldn't have to think. Now, though, he tosses in bed, tries to find the perfect arrangement of thin, worn pillows and ratty blanket. Nothing works. He lies flat on his back and stares at the ceiling, the gaps in the wood that makes up both the ceiling and the floor for the level above this one. He finds his breath, loses it, finds it again. He wonders how much time has passed, if lying still for long enough still counts as sleeping, but he tries not to wonder for too long for risk of wondering about the wrong thing.

“You still up?” Terry asks. The relief Brad feels is only dampened by how exhausted he is.

“Yep.”

“You can’t sleep either?” Brad rolls over to find that Terry is already staring at him from the space between their beds. His face is pressed into the mattress so that only his left eye is visible.

“I probably could if I tried.”

“The rest of us probably could if you shut up,” Fly grumbles from across the room. Terry rolls his eyes, but the two fall silent. For a long while, they just stare at each other across the space between their beds and try to have conversations with just their eyes. Brad looks up at the ceiling, and Terry's eyes follow. Brad wonders if there's someone on the third floor. Terry glances down at the floor, looks back up at Brad, and makes an expression as if to say, "yikes," maybe at the day past, maybe at the innkeeper, maybe at something else. Brad cannot tell. Every now and then, Terry smiles, and Brad smiles back, just a little.

“Fly?” Terry asks after what feels like hours of silence. No response. “Okay, I think he’s out.”

“Why can’t you sleep?” Terry shrugs with one shoulder. Brad feels like there should be a space in between what he’s said and what he wants to say, something transitional, but he can’t find it. “Can I come over?”

“Come on down,” Terry says, and he scoots closer to the end of the bed to allow Brad a little space. Brad lies down, facing Terry.  Terry smiles with half of his face. “I think maybe I can’t sleep in a bed anymore. Maybe I’m too used to the ground now.”

“You think?”

“Maybe.” This close up, he can see part of the hidden part of Terry’s face.

“Let me see your eye,” Brad says.

“Is it fucked up bad?” Terry asks, lifting his head from the mattress. His eye is blue or maybe purple, some color lost in the darkness between them, sclera partially stained red.

“It’s not awful,” Brad says. “Does it hurt?”

“Not too bad. What about your hand?” Terry asks. Brad is almost confused when he offers forward his hand to let Terry inspect his bruised knuckles. The day feels distant in that moment, the memory of the fight that had left the two of them bruised and exhausted only barely reaching the present moment. Terry frowns as he holds Brad’s hand in his.

“A little worse for the wear, but I’ll survive,” Brad says. Terry smiles, scans him in the middle dark. His hand drifts upwards, over Brad’s wrist until settling on his upper arm. He traces his thumb over a patch of flesh, healed over pink and raised and strange-textured, repeats the gesture several times until he is sure of it.

“You have a scar right here.”

“That’s been there for a while,” Brad replies. Terry runs his thumb over the scar, slower this time, as if committing it to memory.

“I never noticed it,” he says.

“I’ve got a lot.”

“Let me see.”

“It’s too dark for you to see some of them,” Brad says, but he pulls his poncho over his head anyway, lets it fall around what’s left of his left arm. He looks down to his ribs, moves his arm so that Terry can get a better view of the decade-old ghost of a stab wound, long and white and narrow. “You see this one?”

“Yeah,” Terry says softly. He runs his fingertips over the valley in the flesh, almost reverent. Brad expects him to ask questions about how he got the scar, but he doesn’t. He just feels, and, when he’s satisfied, he moves on, follows the trail of Brad’s ribs down to his stomach in search of another scar. He finds one, a little spot on Brad’s stomach that he doesn’t quite remember how he got, and gives it the same careful treatment.

“A couple of them are hidden under the hair,” Brad says. Terry nods, feels his way upward, over Brad’s chest and up to his shoulder where he finds a broad swath of scab, rough and flaky.

“This one’s probably gonna scar up too,” Terry says, his voice low enough that Brad wonders if he even meant to say it out loud, but he answers anyway.

“I think I got a couple that will.” He thinks about his face, the spot between his finger and thumb where, in the scuffle-rush, he had tried to stop a knife with his hand, the spot on his back where Terry had attempted to stitch up a bullet wound. “Got one here too from when I was real little. Under the beard.” Brad points to a spot just by his chin where a beer bottle had once hit, and Terry reaches towards the finger, cards through his beard as if trying to locate it by touch. Brad knows Terry doesn’t feel it; the unsatisfied curiosity lingers on his face even as his hand drifts further from the scar, towards Brad’s cheek where he works his busy hands through his beard. He’s thinking something heavy. Brad can feel it, but, when their eyes meet, the silence is too much to cut through, and he doesn’t ask.

He moves his face closer to Terry’s, their noses almost touching. They drift together little by little, and, then, they’re kissing, slow and natural and comfortable. Terry rolls onto his back, pulling Brad on top of him. They try to negotiate a comfortable position as best they can without breaking the kiss, Brad shifting his weight back and forth, Terry squirming until Brad is firmly between his legs. He bucks his hips up, and Brad grinds his down in response, hard contact that coaxes sound from them both. Soon, they aren’t even kissing, just breathing into each other’s mouths as they rut against each other, and Brad doesn’t know how it happened, but it doesn’t matter. He can feel how hard Terry is, can hear the sounds he makes with every movement, feel his nails digging into his back. Brad’s so aroused that it almost hurts, but he draws this out for as long as he can before he finally pulls away only to find that Terry is already looking up at him. He can tell they’re both thinking the same thing, but there’s still a bit of uncertainty, the question of if it’s okay, of who’s going to say something first.

“What?” Brad asks. It isn’t what he wants to say, comes out ungentle and unconfident and very, very unsexy, but it doesn’t seem to bother Terry.

“I want you to fuck me so bad,” he says.

“Okay,” Brad answers.

“Do you want to?” Terry asks.

“I just said that I did.”

“We don’t have a condom,” Terry says. Brad can’t tell if he’s actually concerned or if he’s just offering Brad an out. Maybe both.

“Doesn’t matter,” Brad says. He tries to think of something else to say, something about how they’re most likely past the point of caring about safe sex anyway, but he decides against it. “I want to.”

“Alright,” Terry says, and Brad can see the anxiety soften in his face. “Cool. Awesome. I’ve got the stuff in the bag. Let me just…” Brad nods and sits upright, letting Terry roll off the bed and pad his way across the gap between beds. He digs through the backpack sitting on Brad’s bed.

“Just don’t expect too much,” Brad says as Terry returns to sit beside him.

“You’re fine,” Terry says, and he reaches down to palm at the bulge in Brad’s pants. Brad exhales. He places a hand on Terry’s waist, and, as he settles into the familiar touch, it trails down to work clumsily at the button of Terry’s pants.  “I got it.” Brad apologizes again, and he watches as Terry unbuttons his pants and shimmies them off his hips. He’s wearing a pair of threadbare red briefs that Brad quickly pulls down to expose Terry’s aching cock. He spits into his hand and gives it a few good strokes. Terry gives a nervous little laugh that trails off onto a long “ohh.” He tilts his head back as a hand slips underneath his shirt, works in circles at his chest. Brad’s eyes dart from the hand, Terry’s face, his dick. Terry looks up, a little smile, the hand beneath his shirt moving to touch Brad’s forearm. “Hey, this is good, but, like, do you want to keep going?”

“Yeah. Sure.”  Brad releases Terry’s cock and watches as he kicks off his underwear. Brad realizes that he’s never seen Terry completely naked.  His legs are long and pale in the moonlight, covered in hair that suddenly becomes several shades darker just below his knees. He’d never thought of Terry as particularly muscular, but he’s almost surprised to see the softness of Terry’s inner thighs. “Take your shirt off too,” Brad says. For a moment, Terry looks like he’s going to protest, but he pulls his tank top over his head and lets it fall to the floor. He looks up at Brad as if waiting for a reaction, but Brad doesn’t know quite what to say. He places his hand just below Terry’s collarbone, familiar territory that he’s seen from beneath the low collar of his shirt, and traces a path down over his chest, soft like his thighs, only a sparse patch of hair between the soft peaks of his breast. A long and surgical line, time faded, perfectly bisects his torso, running from just below the dip of his collarbone to just inches above his navel. Brad doesn’t ask. He runs a thumb over Terry’s nipple, over the bone-close skin of his ribs, the paunch of his stomach and the little patch of hair that runs down from his navel.

“You’re pretty.” Terry looks away, but he smiles, a hint of teeth. “Fuck, that’s not a good compliment for a guy, is it?”

“Pretty’s good.” Terry gaze turns back to Brad’s face, and he presses a chaste kiss to his lips. They look each other as if unsure of what to do, but, then, Terry reaches for the bottle of lube. It opens with a click, and he squeezes out a generous amount in his hand. He lies on his back, holds his legs back to give Brad the full view. He’s a lot more flexible than Brad expects him to be at his age, but he doesn’t say anything for risk of ruining the moment somehow. Terry hisses as he eases his finger in, starting with his middle but quickly adding his index. His face wrinkles as he scissors his fingers, works himself deeper.

“You want me to help?”

“Nah, I got it. Just give me a second.” Brad reaches for the bottle of lube and squirts a little bit into his hand. He almost jumps as he touches his cock, the liquid still cool enough to send a chill down his spine, but it’s quickly replaced by a bright feeling in his gut as he begins to jerk himself off. He works in slow, even strokes, something in the back of his mind telling him to pace himself. The image of Terry adding a third finger as he stretches himself open is already a lot to take in, and Brad is suddenly a little unsure of how long he can last. “Good enough,” Terry laughs. “Good enough. You ready?” Brad nods.

Terry holds his legs back, watches as Brad walks forward on his knees, holds his dick by the base. He lines himself up and places the tip at Terry’s entrance before pushing in until he’s about halfway inside him. “Hoo boy… Wow,” Terry says, and he sounds a little short of breath as he laughs. He covers his eyes with his hand and adds, “I forgot how thick you are.”

“You good?” Brad rubs the jut of Terry’s hipbone.

“Just go slow.” Brad nods, pulls out and pushes back in, and Terry’s expression changes into something maybe-good maybe-bad. He rests his legs on Brad’s shoulders, rolls his hips experimentally. Brad pays close attention to his movements, tries to go as slowly as he can in spite of the tension in his shoulders, the heat in the pit of his stomach spurring him onward.

“Does it hurt?” he asks.

“A little. It hurts, but it feels really good.”

“Am I doing it wrong?” Brad asks, concerned.

“No, you’re doing great. You’re just thick.”

“You wanna stop?”

“Fuck no, dude. Just give me a little more lube.” Brad nods and reaches for the bottle, squeezes a little bit onto the place where their bodies meet and pushes into him again. It seems to go easier with every thrust, Terry’s body adjusting until he’s letting out little sighs and rocking his hips against Brad’s. “Okay, keep going,” he whispers. Brad assumes that means faster, and he obliges, leans forward and fucks into him proper. Terry can’t seem to figure out what to do with his hands, pushing back his bangs, holding onto Brad’s arm, jerking his dick in time with Brad’s thrusts, and he cranes his neck up as if to try to catch a glimpse of Brad going into him. Then, Brad thrusts in, and Terry tenses, eyes rolling back. “O-oh, fuck, that’s perfect. Right there.”

“That your spot?” Brad says, his voice low. Terry’s legs are scrabbling for purchase, and he hides his face in his palm.

“Shit, yeah, fuck, I need it.” He’s short of breath, his words tangling together with every thrust.

“You feel so good, Terr,” Brad murmurs, and Terry gasps a smile.

“Brad, dude, let me…” Brad eases back as Terry sits upright. “Lay back. Let me.” Brad does what he’s told and lies down. Terry clambers over him until he’s settled, kneeling, over Brad. Terry reaches down to hold his cock upright, lining up their bodies, and, while Brad has a feeling that he knows what’s happening next, it’s still almost too much when Terry sinks down onto him until his ass is flush with Brad’s hips.

“Shit,” Brad groans. Terry rocks against him, slow at first. He leans back, hands gripping Brad’s thighs as he fucks himself onto his cock, lets out little, breathy moans.

“Yeah?” he asks. Brad nods, just a little. He shifts his weight forward until his face hovers above Brad’s, his hands on either side of Brad’s head, hips never losing their slow and heavy pace. He seems to have lost the direct pressure on his prostate, but his breathing is still ragged, and he seems entirely focused on the task at hand. “This feel good?”

“Yeah,” Brad answers. His voice is barely a whisper. He doesn’t even know if Terry can hear him. He nods again just to be sure.

“You like this?” Terry asks, and, at this point, Brad can tell he’s teasing him. “You want me to stop?”

“Terry,” Brad says, and he’s almost embarrassed how desperate he sounds.

“Tell me.” Brad swallows, licks his lips, tries to mentally compose his voice. He reaches up to guide Terry’s head downward until their noses graze against one another. His hand travels up the back of Terry’s neck, into his hair.

“So good,” Brad whispers. He can feel Terry’s breath, his smile, the heat welling up in every part of him. Brad kisses Terry, just once. “Please don’t stop.” There’s a pause, a hesitation, and Terry is no longer smiling, and there’s something sharp and tender in the space between him. From this angle, he can’t see Terry’s whole face, just his cheek, the dark corona around his eye, the top part of his lips. Brad worries he’s said something wrong until Terry speaks again.

“Put your hand here.” He guides Brad’s hand back to his hip, lets him feel out the motion as he grinds harder. Brad’s fingers dig into Terry’s skin, and there are moments where he feels like he’s the one guiding Terry’s hips, that he’s in control, but the feeling doesn’t last for long before Terry moves just right and leaves Brad gasping. “My legs are getting tired. Can you give it to me from behind?” Terry asks.

“Sure.” Brad gives Terry a gentle tap on the thigh, and Terry sits up, wincing as Brad’s dick slips out of him. Brad rolls himself over as the other man dismounts, and he gets himself up on his knees. The mattress is hard on his joints, but he can’t imagine how this would have gone if they were out in the wasteland. Terry, meanwhile, rolls himself over onto his stomach, props his ass up into the air, looks back over his shoulder with a smile. Brad’s mind is flooded with the image, and he swims through all the things he wants to do, places he wants to touch, to kiss, to lick, but he’s too embarrassed to try or even ask. He settles on giving his dick a few lazy strokes before walking forward on his knees to meet him. He rests the tip on the cleft of Terry’s ass before guiding it in with his hand, and he lets out a little sigh as he feels himself surrounded in the heat, the pressure. He gives a few thrusts, but he can feel something within him twisting too tight.

“I’m kind of getting there,” Brad says, placing his hand on Terry’s back.

“Yeah, me too.” Terry pauses, and Brad can’t see his face, but he can tell he’s thinking. “Come inside me.”

“You sure?”

“I want it so bad,” Terry whispers, smiling, earnest. “It’s all yours, dude.” Brad isn’t sure what he means by that last part, but he nods anyway and his hand slides down to hold fast to Terry’s hip. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to, like, make you uncomfortable, but could you please pull my hair? Just a little?” Brad nods, reaches forward, and grabs a handful of hair not too close to the scalp. Terry hums. “Little harder?” Brad tightens his fist, pulls back enough to feel the tug, and Terry hisses an inhale, _fuck yes thank you thank you thank you_. He pushes himself back against Brad’s cock and rolls his hips. Brad pulls back harder, forces Terry’s neck into an arch, and Brad can’t help but think how much it has to hurt, but Terry moans with every thrust, whispers praise in the in-betweens. He only lets go when he feels Terry gasp. “Fuck, right there.” Brad moves to grip Terry’s hip tighter and holds him still as he slams into him. Terry hides his face in the crook of his elbow, his fingers digging into whatever they can find. It’s loud, probably too loud, but it’s too late to care.

“Oh my God,” Terry murmurs, his shoulders hunching as his face buries its way deeper into the crook of his elbow. His voice is muffled and utterly wrecked. “You’re gonna make me come.” That almost does it for Brad then and there. He has to pull back until only the head of his cock is still inside Terry, breathe hard through his nose, and try to force the heat down. “No, no, no, don’t stop. Keep going,” Terry whispers, a sharp whine in his voice. “I’m almost there. Please. You gotta-“ Brad grits his teeth, thrusts in hard, and Terry’s pleading cuts off with a choked-out “fuck!” Their bodies collapse downward as Brad drives into him at a quick and desperate pace. Brad’s hand has moved from Terry’s hip to the space beside him, and Terry has sunken down to the point that the only thing keeping his hips in the air is the hand working his cock.

They don’t last long. Terry comes with a shout that carries throughout the room in spite of how hard his face is pressed into his arm. His body clenches around Brad’s length, a shudder wracking through him. That’s what does Brad in, something giving out as a bomb blast heat goes off in the pit of his stomach. He lets out a gasp that gives way to a low groan as his come spills down Terry’s thighs.

Brad collapses to the side, pulling Terry with him until they settle, spent, in a sort of awkward spooning position. It’s too hot, and Brad can swear he can hear someone moving across the room, but he’s too fucked out to give it much thought.

“Don’t pull out yet,” Terry says, and Brad can hear the exhaustion in his voice, the same exhaustion that is slowly settling upon him like a shroud. He just nods against Terry’s shoulder blade, and the room settles back into silence. The sex sweat dries against their skin only to give way to the stagnant heat of the inn, of too many bodies in the same room. “You feeling okay?” Brad nods. For the moment, the only things he feels is tired, orgasm dimmed into something pleasantly cool and dark, and something quieter, a worry that this feeling won’t last for long. He tries to press the latter down enough so that it doesn’t ruin the moment. “Good.” He laughs, less a sound than a motion. Brad does his best to pull him closer with one hand.

“How about you?” Brad asks.

“Really good. That was really good.” Brad squeezes Terry closer in response. “We should probably put some clothes on,” Terry says, but neither of them move. “Tired.” A question and a statement. Brad nods. Eventually, Terry wiggles from Brad’s grip and slides off the bed. He gathers their clothes off the floor and throws them to Brad, who watches as Terry cleans himself off and shimmies back into his pants before finally deciding to do the same. When they’re done, Terry rejoins Brad on the bed just as before, his back to him. Brad wraps his arm around him and debates whether he should fall asleep here or try to make it back into his own bed. He still hasn’t decided when Terry speaks again.

“You still like me, right?” he asks, a translucent tone to his voice like he’s joking, something bright painted over rotting wood. Brad feels it. He opens his eyes.

“I like you a lot,” Brad says. He means it. He’s too tired to lie. Terry seems to think about Brad’s response for a long while.

“I like you too.” Terry rolls over so that they lie face to face, but he doesn’t meet Brad’s gaze. He presses his face into his neck, wedges himself into the gaps between Brad’s body and the bed until he is smothering against him.

“Are you okay?” Brad asks. He tries to move back so he can better see Terry’s face, but Terry clings fast to him, shakes his head. He doesn’t want to be seen. “Terry, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Terry says, voice soft and dry. “Happy, I think.” Brad believes him, but he doesn’t, understands, but doesn’t. The space between them is imperfect: too close but, somehow, not close enough. For a second, Brad is unsure if it can ever be crossed.

“Do you need anything?” Brad asks. It’s the only thing he knows to say. Terry shakes his head against Brad’s pulse.

“Nah,” he says. “Just stay with me.” And he does.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> no beta readers we post like men
> 
> aaanyway here's that porn i've been writing for months finally im free finally i can move on with my life and by that i mean write more lisa fic  
> s/o to my pals who encouraged me to write this garbage?? luv y'all xoxo
> 
> im @clownsympathizer on tumblr and @rasputinian on twitter (im private on there but i'll probably approve you tbh) come scream about lisa with me


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